After seizing power in the Caribbean island nation of Cuba in 1959, leftist innovatory leader Fidel Castro (1926- ) allied himself with the Soviet Union. Under Castro, Cuba grew needy on the Soviets for military and financial aid. During this time, the U.S. and the Soviets (and their respective allies) were occupied in the Cold War (1945-91), and continuing series of largely following and economic clashes.
The two superpowers thrust into one of their biggest Cold War argument after the pilot of an American U-2 spy plane making a high elevation pass over Cuba on October 14, 1962, photographed a Soviet SS-4 medium-range ballistic projectile being accumulate for installation.
President Kennedy was briefed about the circumstances on October 16, and he instantly called together a group of advisors and officials known as the managerial committee, or ExCom. For nearly the next two weeks, the president and his team struggle with a political disaster of epic proportions, as did their counterparts in the Soviet Union.
For the American officials, the importance of the situation curtail from the fact that the nuclear-armed Cuban arsenal were being installed so close to the U.S. mainland--just 90 miles south of Florida. From that launch point, they were competent of rapidly reaching targets in the eastern U.S. If allowed to become prepared, the missiles would essentially alter the complexion of the nuclear enmity between the U.S. and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which up to that point had been conquered by the Americans.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had venture on sending the missiles to Cuba with the detailed goal of growing his nation's nuclear strike competence. The Soviets had long felt uneasy about the number of nuclear weapons that were besieged at them from sites in Western Europe and Turkey, and they saw the consumption of weaponry in Cuba as a way to level the playing field. Another key factor in the Soviet missile method was the antagonistic relationship between the U.S. and Cuba.